Priorities - to name a few . . .

---

What makes a great school - great? Most critical to a school’s success: TEACHERS! 

Recruiting and retaining teachers is PARAMOUNT and I have a few ideas.

         IMMEDIATELY FIX

• Health insurance premiums- many teachers’ raises haven’t been reflected in their paychecks due to an outrageous increase in their health insurance costs. With SUSD having nearly a half billion dollar budget, we need to repurpose existing dollars to prioritize teachers taking home more of their pay.1

• Seniority/ pay based on how many years you have worked in SUSD - not based soley on “consecutive” years. SUSD has adopted a policy that severely penalizes mothers and fathers who temporarily stop working in order to care for a child or children. For example, currently, a teacher who has served the district for ten years, then takes a few years off with the birth of his or her child - upon return - loses all of those years of seniority and is re-started in the system and paid as if he or she is a first year teacher again. This sends exactly the wrong message to valuable teachers and MUST be fixed including and especially for every teacher currently paid less due to this unjustifiably punitive policy. Transparency into the budget will enable repurposing existing dollars to “righting” this wrong.

           LONG TERM - MORE COMPLICATED, BUT EQUALLY IMPORTANT - FIX

• Highest paid employees should include teachers - instead of solely administrators - We must not continue to incentivize our best teachers to leave the classroom to become administrators in order to increase their compensation. This concept, while based on common sense, seems radical and at a minimum, will require rethinking and reimagining long held school district doctrine. There are no simple solutions as to how this can be accomplished but it is worth our careful study. (Full disclosure: I first heard this idea from an existing SUSD school board member and state senate candidate, Carine Werner. A good idea is a good idea!)

  1    Although, there is a push by some to mandate all school districts in Arizona be forced to join the State of Arizona health insurance plan (despite K-12 schools already having the option to choose to) there are several well-founded concerns with this idea. 

       First, the state health insurance trust fund has a history of being raided to back-fill state budget deficits - resulting in mandatory increased premiums. 

      The state’s university system presented studies to the Governor and Arizona lawmakers in 2018 showing that Arizona universities, if no longer mandated to be a part of the state health insurance program, ". . . could have better health insurance, potentially at a lower cost  . . .”. In fact, “ . . . university employees are overpaying for health insurance now through the state system, ASU said, If ASU and UA left the state plan, ASU estimated the two schools combined could save about $30 million per year”. (Arizona Republic, 4/5/2018 written by Rachel Leingang). https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona-education/2018/04/05/nearly-50000-arizonans-could-get-better-health-insurance-if-state-leaders-allow/475034002/

  And finally, mandating one solution for every school in the state is inconsistent with principles of local control - (those closest to a community have a better feel for what the local needs are and are therefore better suited to respond and develop solutions). Currently, school districts that want to join the state health insurance plan, already can. Forcing every school district to join feels heavy handed.